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G5 PowerBook "Challenge"
CarlBenda writes "MacWorld/UK has some interesting quotes from Jon Rubinstein, senior vice president of Hardware Engineering at Apple concerning the possibility of a G5 powerbook. He's said that a G5 powerbook is "an issue of good, solid engineering" and that "a few years ago, nobody thought it would be possible to get a G4 processor in a PowerBook". Start saving your money."
You know they wouldn't have chosen it if they couldn't make a good laptop with it.
Now, they'd better make sure they sort out that heat problem that the current 12" G4 Powerbooks suffer from.
Actually what I find irritating is that I finally get enough money to buy an iPod, go get it, and then suddenly there are brand new ones out about a month or two later which totally blow mine out of the water and make me want to shoot myself.
Otherwise, who cares about a roadmap? Are you really going to put off some major hardware provisioning decision because a roadmap claims (key word) that they will have such and such a product out by a certain time? They are almost always adjusted.
Running linux is great...but there's no reason to slight MacOS X.
Especially with the fink/gentoo collaboration.
The desktop Power Mac G5 already does processor cycling in order to keep the noise/temperature/performance balance at an optimal level. Clearly a similar function will be used in the PowerBook G5, just as nearly every Wintel notebook on the market today does.
I sold a Vaio R505 that would whine up and down loudly depending on whether you were scrolling through a web page or just sitting there reading it. I just couldn't take it anymore. When it comes to choosing performance or noise level, I usually choose to have a quieter machine. But hopefully Apple, unlike Sony, will allow an easy way to control which gets priority.
> Panther will also support Dolby Digital 5.1 sound when used with the G5 optical audio output.
I notice the $350 set of 5.1 speakers they're offering at the Apple Store to go along with the G5 machines, but does anyone know of any optical-connecting 2.1 speakers that might cost a bit less? I have no need for 5.1 sound, and 2.1 would be more than sufficient, but I'd like to take advantage of the new optical connections...
> As hot as the G4 PowerBooks get, they'll need some
> hellacious cooling on these things.
While I realize that the parent post is a joke, this is a fairly common misconception I figured should be addressed eventually.
The reason why PowerBook G4 systems get hot tends to be the hard drive and has little (if anything) to do with the processor (which runs at a much lower temperature than anything Intel has offered in years).
Integrate Keynote and LaTeX
I'm just happy I can be x86-free on the road!
The same dude said a while back that G5s weren't going to show up in laptops for some reason or another.
There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
While putting the current .13 micron G5 in a laptop would be hard, it's not impossible. The chip itself is hot, but at lower speeds, it's not particularly hot. Desktop P4's are being put in to laptops, and those do upwards of 90wts of heat(with Prescott set to surpass 100wts), which makes for a hot laptop, but isn't impossible, as it results in a powerful "desktop replacement" machine.
The reason we're not seeing a PB G5 is because the kind of "desktop replacements" being made out of P4's are unreasonable as far as Apple's concerned. Apple wants something sleek, and they're willing to wait for it. Still, compared to the P4, the G5 is far less of a challenge to implement in to a laptop.
What I'm really looking forward to is, apparently IBM is working on adding an AltiVec-compatible SIMD unit to the G3 processor, and ramping up the clock speed. A couple of those would make a sweet laptop.
$x='S24;r)>63/* h@<5+oZ)32"5cz';$me='phroggy'x$];
$x=~y+ -xz+\0-Tx+;print$_^chop$me for split'',$x;
does anyone really need the power of a G5 in a notebook?
Its not the processor speed my users need, its more addressable memory.
My users routinely load 1-2GB images (we're a scientific shop working on NASA images) and that slows the G4 laptops to a crawl.
Its also the main reason I'm investigating AMD's 64bit chips -- just for more addressable memory.
(I'm morally opposed to paying for Intel's overpriced CPUs, so Xeons are out).
...Xoff
Phineas J. Whoopie, you're the greatest!
Most all laptop users want a small, light-weight, cool (even after running all day) and semi-powerful laptop that has a good battery life. G5's are great procs, but they are *far* from meeting the above requirments that *most all* laptop users want. They are too hot, use too much power and too big at present... give them a few years.
The G4 has a lot of life left when it comes to portable computing.
It's the same reason car companies disguise their prototypes.
Car companies don't disguise their prototypes. I think you are thinking of concept vehicles, which they usually say, "This will never be released." then release a similar model the following year. If you will notice car companies change styles every 4-5 years. That's the lifespan of any particular vehicle style, and after that it gets a moderate change. You can expect that. It's usually a cosmetic change and a few gadget features.
Apple on the other hand has to use actual marketing tactics. Nobody wants to buy a $3,500 computer when they can wait and buy a much better computer for... you guessed it, $3,500.
So while you have Apple's reasoning right, you don't have car manufacturers. I'm still trying to figure out if this is offtopic or not.
Dacels Jewelers can't be trusted.
Since you seem to accept that roadmaps are often works of fiction, why not make up your own roadmap? Hmm, the interval between previous generations of iPods was x, so I project the next revision will be in the month of y. Then, if you delay a purchase after looking at your roadmap, you will be happy if the roadmap was accurate and new models arrived when you projected them. And if your roadmap was inaccurate, you have only yourself to blame.
If Apple published a roadmap that they didn't live up to, everybody would be unhappy about it. And there are lots of reasons why they might not introduce new models by the projected date. A manufacturer always incurs additional costs in introducing a new model so they would prefer to keep selling the old model as long as they can. If the old model is still selling well, why bother introducing a new model at all?
A decently configured G4 PowerBook is $2599. That's as much as a G5 desktop already. I fully expect G5 PowerBooks to start at $2999 and extend past $4000.
Car companies don't disguise their prototypes.
Sure they do. And just as with computer-related rumors, there are folks out there who follow and report on new developments and publish photos of suspected prototypes.
Yes, auto makers will show you their 'concept cars' as a way to generate interest. And they'll sometimes show actual prototypes as well, particularly when the prototype is close to what they expect to produce. But when GM or Ford are testing out a new engine, for example, they'll put it in a car with an existing body style. Or if they're trying out a whole new car, they'll cover the body panels with tape, or leather masking, or whatever.
Heck, I can even think of at least a couple TV spots where the manufacturers use this idea to make their new model seem more desireable. There's one, for example, where some alleged engineers are testing out a white car (Nissan Altima, maybe?) somewhere in the desert. A bunch of planes, helicopters, cars, etc. show up trying to get a look at the car, and the engineers then hide the car under a tent so that the others (press? competition?) can't see it.
So yeah, car companies do disguise their prototypes, and for the same reasons: they want to surprise the buying public and the competition with a cool new product at the introduction, and they don't want to hurt the market for the existing model until that time.
Car companies don't disguise their prototypes.
Yes, they do. Car manufacturers will put plastic bras, duct tape, cardboard, panels from existing models, and all manner of other tricks when testing out new cars. When developing new chasis and engines they often will put an existing body on the new chasis, to try out the new stuff on real roads.
Look in any car magazine and you'll find photos of "heavily disguised spy pics" or "photoshope enhanced pictures of lightly disguised" cars. Go to Death Valley in the summer and you can see disguised prototypes live and in person, getting tortured.
Given that Microsoft's favorite method of innovating is to mimic whatever Apple does, it seems reasonable for Apple to hold its cards close to its vest.
Apple has %7 of the laptop market with a trend towards strong growth in this area. The new G4 and speculative G5 PowerBooks, coupled with the release of MacOS X Panther 10.3 could bolster Apple's laptop markethshare to %10. This would place Apple as the number one supplier of laptops in the world.
Yeah it was right after PCC announced a line of G3s in the same box as the 225 that Apple ended licensing of clones. I still have that machine around; it came with 96M of RAM and, for the time, it cooked. Best thing about PCC though was their advertising; the posters can still be found here.
With Apple, they upgrade their product line and promptly discontinue production of the old products which means that there is no lower tier which would reap the decreased cost benefit of the upgrades. Because of this, it's not in Apple's best interest to announce upgraded product lines ahead of time because it would have a chilling effect on the sales of the products they've already produced. This phenomenon can also be noted in the game console industry where price cuts may be rumored for a while but no confirmation announcement will be handed down until the price cuts take place. For example, if Nintendo announced today that as of October 1st the Gamecube would be $99 instead of $150, that would be tantamount to Nintendo saying "You shouldn't buy a Gamecube until next month."